


This Body

by Qpenguin98



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kinda?, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Post-Undertale Soulless Pacifist Route, Self-Harm, Sharing a Body, theyre both fucked up kids living in one body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 04:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16527626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qpenguin98/pseuds/Qpenguin98
Summary: It’s been eight and a half years since you came back up to the surface, and as you turn on the old grumbly car that you bought for yourself, you think about how that’s almost half your life, almost half your life spent with monsters and a mom that loves you and another person in your brain that you try to share an equal amount of your body with.“You’re making it sound like it’s a bad thing,” Chara says with your mouth.





	This Body

You wake up feeling red and green and off kilter in your bed. You feel half there, and normally Chara isn’t this front and center in the mornings, staying in the back until at least breakfast. But they’re here now, pressing against your soul in the warm tingly way that they do.

_Chara?_ You think into your headspace as quiet as you can.

**Been awake for a while** , they say as they stretch out your arms. **Sorry. It’s fine.**

It doesn’t feel fine, but you don’t say anything, taking back over the arms to push yourself upright. The sun filters in through the gaps in your curtains, and you squint a bit at the light. You hop off the bed, slipping on the slippers Mettaton got you last Christmas. They have his face on them. It smells like apples and cinnamon and you hope mom made applesauce. You pull on the pair of shorts you’d kicked off last night when you’d gotten too warm under the covers to wear them anymore and head for downstairs.

Mom’s puttering away at the stove, flipping pancakes on the skillet, and you make sure to step loud enough to make noise. Chara’s quiet in the back of your head, but mom turns to greet you, smiling.

“Good morning, Frisk,” she says, passing a pancake from the skillet to the plate in the oven. “How’re you?”

“ _I’m OK,_ ” you sign, looking at the food she’s making. Pancakes, applesauce, bacon. “ _Do you need help_?”

“I think I’ve got it pretty covered, but if you wanted to finish up these pancakes that would be very helpful.”

You nod and grab the spatula from her, scooping up the next measuring cup full of batter and doling it onto the skillet. You wait until the bubbles appear all over the uncooked part before flipping it successfully, no smears of batter anywhere on the pan.

“Do you have any plans today?”

“ _I might hang out with Kid,_ ” you sign easily. “ _But I’m going out after breakfast for a drive._ ”

You can feel Chara resting near the front of your head. **You’re lying** , they say, not accusatory, just a fact. **You’re not hanging out with Kid at all**.

You pass the pancake onto the plate in the oven and scoop up the next one. Mom hums, flipping the bacon.

“Would you pick up milk before you come home? We’re almost out.”

“ _Yes_ ,” you sign, flipping the pancake. There’s a store nearby, you’ll be able to do that easily. Chara spins around inside, trying to figure out what exactly it is you’re doing today, but there’s pretty much nothing, because you don’t have plans. You just want out of the house.

**Why not just say that?**

_I don’t want her to worry_ , you say as you pour the last of the batter onto the pan. It sizzles away quietly. _And she would_.

**You say that like she shouldn’t** , they say, incredulous. They’re cranky today, you think. Must be something about them being awake early.

You sit at the table and eat your pancakes with applesauce smeared on top, munch on your two pieces of bacon. Chara sits to the side and you let them take front and center for a while, let them enjoy the taste and sensation of eating food. It’s not chocolate but it’s mom’s cooking, so they seem pleased.

Throwing a loose hat over your hair instead of showering, you change into clothes worthy of going out and about in. Mom hugs you before you leave and you let her, sinking into her warm fur.

“Be safe, my child. Text me to let me know if anything comes up.”

You nod and grab your keys, locking the door behind you.

It’s been eight and a half years since you came back up to the surface, and as you turn on the old grumbly car that you bought for yourself, you think about how that’s almost half your life, almost half your life spent with monsters and a mom that loves you and another person in your brain that you try to share an equal amount of your body with.

“You’re making it sound like it’s a bad thing,” Chara says with your mouth. Your voice is a little rough. You don’t talk much and Chara doesn’t like to talk in front of others, but they do if you need them to.

_Not bad,_ you think to them. _Just different. Didn’t you ever think that? How much time you did or didn’t spend of your life with humans?_

“I guess,” they say, hitting the cd button on the dash. You both prefer driving with music, Chara more so than you. “Where are we going?”

_Depends. Why are you upset?_

“I’m not,” they huff, and you grip the wheel tighter.

_You are. I can tell. You’re almost never that awake before we eat. What’s wrong?_

“It’s dumb,” they say. You tamp down your frustration. It’s never dumb with Chara, especially if they’re not saying anything about it. They think their problems are dumb, but they’re not, they never are.

“You’re one to talk about problems not being dumb,” they say, tone gravelly. You roll your eyes.

_Not about me right now. Tell me?_

“I miss Azzy, alright?” they say, hands in a death grip on the steering wheel. “It’s stupid. You were just thinking about it being eight years. It’s dumb. He’s not coming back.”

You’re quiet for a moment and then you take control of the hands, loosening the death grip and turning on your blinker to turn around.

“No,” they say weakly. “That’s not him.”

_It’s what’s left of him_ , you think as you turn towards Mt. Ebott. It’s a while to get there. There’s plenty of time to turn back around.

“I don’t want to talk to him,” they say, their hold loosening on everything but your voice. “I don’t want to see Flowey, Frisk. Not today.”

“Okay,” you say, your own words feeling strange in your mouth. You can feel how upset they are now that they’re not trying to keep it from you. _What do you want to do?_

“Drive?” they suggest. You offer up your body to them, letting them control the place and the speed and the music. They skip a few songs until something more hard and upbeat plays and then looks behind them. They skid into a turn, spinning back a hundred and eighty degrees to go back the way you came from. The road is empty, it’s early in the day and people are still in their homes. As long as they’re safe around other cars you don’t care much what they do when it’s just the two of you.

“Alright,” they say, shaking their shoulders a bit before shaking each hand out. “This is a fucking bummer of a mood. Let’s get _pumped_!”

They blast the volume and gun the gas and you’re both shoved back in your seat by the inertia of the speed but it feels good. You can feel the buzzing of the song in your knees and your hands, dulled from sitting on the back burner. You can feel Chara’s glee too, sharp and present as they speed down the empty road, grin splitting your face. There’s enough gas in the tank to last a while, and you have money for if you run out. Chara seems eager to drive and you’re content to sit back and let that happen.

_Let’s go somewhere with trees_ , you request, and they whoop in acknowledgement. If mom asks, you’ll say you went to see a movie, but she isn’t here and you can go wherever you want.

As long as you remember the milk.

\---

You feel shifty in your body, arms itching under your sweater sleeves. Chara feels it too, you know it. They’re just as bad as you when the shifty itchy skin feeling comes on. You want to hide away in a dark room and dig something sharp into your skin, anything you can.

The problem is that you’re at Sans and Papyrus’s house helping Papyrus make spaghetti, and that means your job is cutting up ingredients for the sauce.

The shlunk of the knife under your hand is heady in your shared brain, more on you than Chara. The tomatoes spill red juice onto the cutting board and you can feel your lungs spasm. They’re fleshy, they give so easily. Your hand is so close. You could simply… slip with the knife and find the sharp relief it gives you. Papyrus wouldn’t know. He’d make you patch up, but he wouldn’t—

**Jesus Christ I’m taking over.**

Chara takes your limbs, takes your lungs, takes everything you’re fucking up and starts chopping, albeit a bit more forceful than you. Papyrus notices, and you can feel his energy brighten up.

“YES! THAT’S THE SPIRIT. PUT YOUR HEART INTO IT!”

They chop more furiously, careful not to nick themself. The chopping goes quickly after that, but you curl up inside, trying not to feel the curve of the handle and the power of the blade. It’s a pointless endeavor. You know what knives do, you know intimately well what knives do. You know what the skeleton next to you’s dust feels like in your throat, coating your hands, gritting at your eyes. You know what his brother’s feels like too.

Chara’s hand slips and you shove yourself present, soaking in the feeling of the sting. They curse in the back of your mind, but everything’s buzzing now. You can feel that one point on your body, nothing else. That’s all you need. You need more, you want more.

A hand settles on your shoulder and you jump, knife clattering to the cutting board. Papyrus stands above you, staring at your hand.

“FRISK! YOU CUT YOUR HAND. THAT IS NO GOOD. WE MUST GET YOU PATCHED UP IMMEDIATLEY.”

“ _I can do it, don’t worry,_ ” you sign, careful not to get blood on the tomatoes. You grab the knife back up.

“…ARE YOU SURE?”

You nod, smiling a little to make it realer. Papyrus sighs and lets you go. “ALRIGHT. BUT IF YOU NEED ANY HELP, DO NOT HESITATE TO ASK.”

You nod again and turn towards the sink. There’s a butter knife sitting there and you pause. You can feel the handle against you palm, wanting desperately to feel the metal more.

**Frisk.**

You ignore them, shoving the butter knife in the sink and pocketing the paring knife. Papyrus has gone back to making the other ingredients. You slip you way into a bathroom and lock the door.

**Frisk, don’t.**

You roll up your sleeves, hands shaky and desperate. The cut on your hand is nothing more than a shallow ache, a dull thing in the back of your mind. You want more. You want it to last.

You lose yourself for a bit, and then you can’t feel yourself at all. You’ve been shoved back, and you don’t know for how long, but Chara’s set the knife down and has set to patching you back up. Their mind feels hard, quiet, reveling in the hurt almost as much as you are, but they seem upset.

You feel upset too when you look at your arm.

You don’t get to take a shuddering inhale, don’t get to grip at your arm to staunch the blood and the pain and the hurt hurt hurt that’s leaking out. Chara’s taken all of that, shoved you so far back that the pain is dulled, you can barely feel any kind of anything.

_Wh- what- what?_

“You stopped being safe with it,” they say, shoving your arm under the lukewarm tap. They rinse and soap and rinse again. And then they find a dusty first aid kit that you know Sans and Papyrus keep around for you. The bandages get wrapped around your arm after a healthy pat down with some toilet paper. They flush the bloodied up toilet paper down the toilet, finish up wrapping your arm, and readjust your sleeves. And then they let you come back to yourself.

The ache in your arm hits you first, and you gasp. You’d seen it, been a little mortified by it, but you hadn’t felt it. In the moment it had felt good, and then you got shoved back because it felt too good, and now it aches, dull and old and shameful.

“Mom’s gonna know,” Chara says flippantly, sliding the knife into your pocket. Anger swells up inside of you and you try not to think too loud, but it’s hard. Emotions are overwhelming right now.

_You won’t even tell her you’re still here and you’re gonna tell me what she’ll know?_ Chara backs off a bit, trying to tamp down their own anger but you’re not done. _It’s been almost nine years and you still won’t tell her you’re here. You take away my autonomy to tell me **that?**_

**Bullshit,** they think at you, angry sad upset. **I’ve known her for longer than you have and we both know it’d hurt her to know I’ve been here the whole time, and don’t you fucking scold me about autonomy when you just tried to wreck this body up real good. This is the one we’ve got, asshole.**

“ _I saved recently_ ,” you sign bitterly in the mirror. They sneer with your mouth.

“And how well would that go over with the skeleton whose fucking house you’re in?”

That stops you. You’re not at home. Both of them are here. You’re fighting with what to everyone else seems like yourself in a bathroom, and you wonder if they’re listening. That stops Chara too. They’re still angry, but yours is gone. They’re right. Mom will know. Chara did it too when they were alive. You’ve done it for years. Mom’s seen before. Mom knows. Most of them probably know, actually. The thought makes your stomach turn.

Chara’s right to be angry with you. You were mean, you were nasty, shoving something in their face that they hate to think about.

**Oh come on. You’re not mean and nasty, your brain’s fucked up same as mine. Everyone knows it and no one’s expecting you to be perfect for it.**

You don’t garner that a response, instead you open the door, making your way back to the kitchen. Sans is leaning on one of the walls, texting. Or, “texting.” He glances at you as you walk by.

“doin’ alright kiddo?”

“ _Fine_ ,” you sign at him, finger splayed out. He seems to take this with a grain of salt and you hurry back to the kitchen. Sans will pry later, but he won’t interfere with spaghetti time.

“FRISK!” Papyrus exclaims when you come back in. Chara groans inside your head, always shying away from how loud he is. “THAT TOOK QUITE A WHILE. IS EVERYTHING OKAY?”

“ _I’m okay. Got lost in thought._ ”

“THAT HAPPENS TO THE BEST OF US. I FINISHED THE REST OF THE VEGETABLES SO WE CAN GET STARTED ON THE ACTUAL SAUCING OF THE SAUCE. ARE YOU UP TO THE CHALLENGE?”

“ _Yes!_ ” you sign happily. You love the saucing of the sauce. Chara snorts at you in the back of your mind. They’re hate the saucing of the sauce, but they’re fine to let you do it. You grab your wooden spoon and the saucepan and stand at the ready. You don’t have to worry about mom or Sans or anyone right now. It’s sauce time, and that’s all that matters.

Papyrus lifts his bowl full of ingredients, mostly tomato, and grins at you. “LET US BEGIN!”

\---

Sometimes, when you want the quiet but you want to talk in a physical way, you’ll go to Muffet’s café and sit in the corner with your laptop, typing out your conversations.

Today’s choice in snack is a very large hot chocolate with two croissants. Chara loves the hot chocolate and you love the croissants, so it’s an excellent compromise. You also kind of love Muffet’s hot chocolate more than anyone else’s, so it’s ultra excellent.

> _Thoughts on the hot chocolate?_

> **Excellent. Superb. My compliments to the spooky spider chef.**

You snicker into the mug, sipping at the still too hot hot chocolate. Chara swoops in to taste it, and you can feel them soaking in the chocolatey goodness. You take a bit of croissant and it’s soft and flaky, just like it is every time. Muffet always has the best bakery food, other than mom’s of course, but she doesn’t make cinnamon butterscotch pie, **cinnabutts** Chara helpfully titles it in your head, so you don’t have to worry about patronage and letting mom down on her cooking.

> **Mom wouldn’t be mad regardless. She likes when you’re having fun.**

> _I know, but I still love mom’s pie the best_

> **Snail pie tonight. Get that iron stomach ready.**

> _We both love snail pie. Don’t even act like it’s a chore to eat it_

“hey kiddo,” Sans says as he walks close by, and you switch to the school paper document you have open. Chara rolls their eyes internally. They’ve never had the best relationship with Sans, not that he knows that, but they tolerate him because you like him. They shove you up front and you smile.

“ _Hey Sans!”_ you say as you bring an S in a grin over your mouth in the sign you’ve attached to him. He plops into the seat next to you, leaning back comfortably in it.

“working hard or hardly working?”

“ _Little bit of both_ ,” you say honestly. The two of you actually are working on this paper when you’re not busy goofing off with each other. “ _You_?”

“hardly working. just figured i’d check in with you. seemed a little off at our house the other night.”

“ _Tired_ ,” you sign, which isn’t… all the way untrue? **Liar.** Fine. It’s untrue. But you don’t want him to worry, or worse, think you’re back to no mercy. “ _Felt weird all day, just needed some alone time._ ” There. Not a lie, unless you count the fact that you’re never alone.

“you sure?” He seems to squint his eye socket at you and you nod. “eh, you did seem ‘fine’ once the saucing of the sauce started. and that spaghetti turned out pretty good.”

“ _Thank you,_ ” you tell him, sending your hand his direction. He scoffs and blows it away with his hand.

“no need to thank me kid, just telling you the truth.”

You offer him half of the second croissant and he takes it, mulling it over. “you bribing me into stopping asking questions with food?”

You just grin at him and he sighs. “fine. guess i can let it drop this time, but if anything goes to shit it’s your ass on the line.”

Waving your hand in an affirmative, you take another drink of your still hot but more bearably so hot chocolate. It’s excellent, again, and Chara rolls in glee at the taste inside your head. You smile into the mug.

“anything particular got you grinning like that?”

“ _Good hot chocolate,”_ you tell him, and Chara agrees wholeheartedly. He snorts and you smile. He glances at your sleeves for a moment and your smile falters for a moment. Sans catches it, obviously. He catches everything you do, a leftover from all the wonderful resets you did.

“mm. how’s that cut on your hand treatin’ you? hopefully not too bad.”

“ _It’s fine,”_ you say, and it’s not even a lie because the one on your hand is practically all healed up. It wasn’t anything more than a scratch. Sans hums in response. “ _I only needed a bandaid. It was OK._ ”

“uhuh. as long as you’re sure.”

Chara, fed up and tired of this conversation, takes your hands from you. “ _I’m **sure**_.”

He blinks at you and then stands. You’re not afraid, but Chara gives you your hands back, refusing to admit that they’re a little spooked, but you can feel it just as sure as your own emotions.

“alright, just makin’ sure. glad you’re alright though. drink that hot chocolate before it gets cold. tell tori i said hi?”

“ _OK_ ,” you sign, taking your hands back. “ _Love you, Sans.”_

“love you too, kiddo.” You swear you hear an S on the end of that kiddo, but you won’t mention it, don’t want to deal with whatever he does and doesn’t know. You know he remembers, but you and Chara never told him anything about them, just you.

> **Whatever. He can pry but he doesn’t get anything.**

Chara’s switched the two of you back to your chat page and you take another bite of croissant. They hate the way that conversation went, you don’t even have to ask to know.

> _Would he be better to tell than mom?_

> **Yeah, but barely. Only cause I don’t like him**.

> _You want someone you don’t like to know?_

> **No. I don’t want anyone to know.**

You shrug and drink more hot chocolate. Maybe you’ll stop up to the counter and see if Muffet’s in the back somewhere. It would be nice to see her.

> **Not like we’re getting this essay done.**

You nod and pack up, draining the rest of the hot chocolate and shoving whatever’s left of the croissants into your mouth. Maybe you can talk cooking with Muffet, if she’s in.

You head up to the counter and wait.

\---

It’s late, and you are driving. You told mom you were going to get food and then to a late night showing of a movie, and she’d seemed uncomfortable with the idea of you being out alone this late, but let you go. It’s dark dark dark and you’re driving, but it’s fine. There’s no one else on the road at one in the morning. Especially not where you’re at.

“We should go home,” Chara says with your mouth, and that’s really the only thing you’ve let them have tonight. You have your hands, you have your feet, you have your eyes, and you control the car.

_Not yet_ , you think. You’re driving. You’re a safe driver. You’re safe. You’re always so fucking safe.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Chara says nervously. “Sometimes you get like this and you’re definitely not safe.”

The thought of driving in the middle, on both lanes, both sides of traffic, crosses your mind, and you slowly veer your car to the left.

“Frisk,” they say, trying to get control of your body, but you lock them out of your moth after that too. The yellow line splits your windshield, glowing in the light from your car. You speed up.

**Frisk. Stop it. Stop it! If you won’t go home, at least get in the right lane. Please, stop.**

You don’t, and this area is hilly. Anyone could come over the top of one of those hills at any moment. Maybe they’d be a monster, turn into dust the second you collide, and you’d become a bloody pulp on your windshield. What would happen to Chara? What would happen to you? Would it force you to reload? Would they? Would you die in a heap in your grumbly little car?

**I’m gonna take over and we’re going to go home and you’re gonna talk to mom about this. Just you fucking wait, Frisk. God, when I get control of the body—**

You see headlights in the distance, far enough away that you have time to move, but you don’t. If anything you veer more to the left. Chara’s shrieking in your brain, but you tune them, out, hit your foot on the gas, and fly forward.

You’re so close, so so so close to crash colliding head on when Chara screams **STOP IT** in your head and takes over, swerving the steering wheel right and hitting on the brake. The other car’s horn blares as it goes past, missing you, driving on. They don’t turn to dust, but then the car goes off the road and your mouth is yelling but it’s Chara’s words, or maybe it’s your own, and the right side of your car hits a tree and your head hits the steering wheel and you pass out.

When you come to, Chara’s still yelling in your head, some nonsense about you being a stupid idiot human with no self preservation, stupid Frisk stupid stupid Frisk, but it also sounds like you and not them, so you’re not really sure. Your head feels dizzy.

“Frisk,” they say with out loud words, but the voice sounds funny. You sound so funny. “Shit, we got a concussion.”

“Con-cush-un,” you mouth out for yourself. You giggle and then groan. Your head hurts. Your car’s jammed into a tree, but you don’t really care. It’s your fault, after all.

“Of course it’s your fucking fault, what the hell were you doing trying to hit that other car? Someone could have died!”

You know. You know someone could have died. You could have died. That thought is funny to you, but laughing hurts, so you just do it in your head.

“Fucking hell, Frisk.” They unbuckle you with clumsy hands and pull the two of you out of the car and onto the ground. The press some buttons on your phone and then it’s ringing against your ear, but you’re not in charge. Chara’s talking, or will be. You’re a little too shocked to have any other emotion.

“what’s up, kid?”

“Sans,” they say in your voice, gravelly from a lack public use. “I need help.”

“what’s wrong?” You can hear his worry and you sink further into yourself.

“Car crash?” Their voice almost questions it. “I… I think I’ve got a concussion, and the car’s here, but I don’t think I can drive it back. I don’t know what to do—”

“i got it, kid. where— where are you?”

“By like Avery and, uh, um, twentieth? I don’t know. It’s dark. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

And Chara’s apologizing for real, for not just to make it sound like you. They’re sorry for not taking over sooner, for letting you drive like this, for not telling someone. You feel like crying and you do, feeling the hot tears on your cheeks.

“it’s alright kid, shit, don’t apologize.”

And you hear the rustle of leaves and look up terrified to find Sans walking towards you and you relax, blubbering into your hands.

“ah shit, you’re bleeding,” he says, touching a bony hand to your forehead. You rub a fisted up circle over your seatbelt bruised chest again and again, _sorry sorry sorry sorry._

“you don’t hafta be sorry. i’m just glad you’re okay.”

“ _I was going to hit a car and I wanted to, they were so close, and maybe I never would’ve had to load back in again, but they stopped me, they dragged back into the front and swerved us over and then we hit the tree and I’m **sorry sorry sorry**_.”

“frisk, slow down, who’s they?”

You wait, quiet, still rubbing that fisted up hand over your chest. You feel Chara’s small affirmative, a quiet promise that it’s okay.

“ _Chara,”_ you sign, hands shaking. There’s effort into keeping them steady right now. “ _They pulled us over._ ”

“the— tori and asgore’s dead human kid?”

“ _They’ve been here since I… since I fell down,_ ” you say, not looking at him. You don’t admit what it really was. You might have fallen, but the accident was one you wanted.

“you’ve had a whole ass dead kid in your head for eight years?”

You snort and nod, and then you wince. There’s a headache now that you’re all giggled out. You curl your arms protectively around yourself. You wish Chara would be more present, but they’re quiet, listening, waiting. You both know what he’ll ask.

“are they why you—”

“No,” you croak out. “Both. We both did that.”

“hmm.” He mulls things over and then holds his hand out. You stare at it blankly. What does he want?

“let’s get you home and deal with that later, alright? tori’d kill me if i left you out here any longer, and i’m not too keen on the idea myself.”

You let him help you up, even if you are taller than him now. He grabs your hand tight and then the world spins around you and you’ll never get used to the weird way Sans travels through time and space, and suddenly you’re in your living room. Sans sits you on the couch before going off to get mom.

_Sorry_ , you tell Chara.

**If this is what makes it so you never fucking do that again, I don’t give a shit who you tell**.

Mom comes out, pajamas on, damp washcloth at the ready, eyes worried. She sets the washcloth gently on your head and dabs at the blood there. Sans follows behind her, hands shoved in his pockets.

“My child, what happened?”

“ _Car crash_ ,” you sign, drained. Chara sits tensed just under the surface, wondering if you’ll tell. Maybe, you’re not sure yet. “ _Swerved into a tree_.”

Sans is watching you carefully, and you stare at him right back. Mom finishes with he washcloth and then rests healing hands on your head. The dizziness goes away and you sigh, slumping.

“I’m glad you’re alright. And I’m glad you called Sans. He seems to have an interesting way of getting places quickly.”

You bite your lip, and then Chara pushes gently to the front.

“ _I need to tell you something,_ ” they say with your hands, movements a little jerky. Mom sits back, eyes open, trusting. You let Chara take the reins. You wonder if Sans can tell the switch has happened.

“Of course, Frisk, anything.”

“ _That. Frisk. I am… Frisk. I’m Frisk. But I’m also another person. There’s two of us here. Frisk isn’t the one talking right now, but they’re okay._ ”

“Two of you,” mom says gently. “If you are not Frisk, then who are you?”

Sans sucks in a breath behind her but she ignores him.

“Chara,” they say with your mouth. “I’m Chara.”

Mom’s quiet for a moment, face carefully neutral. And then it crumples a little bit. “This isn’t funny, Frisk.”

“No—,” you both say, but she cuts you off.

“I’m not mad at you about the car crash, I know you know that. So I don’t know why you think now is the time for bad jokes. To get my mind off of it? This isn’t funny, using my dead child like some kind of party joke.”

“tori—”

“No,” Chara says, voice feeling odd in your mouth. It’s a cadence that’s very particular to them that they’re using right now. “No, of course not. Why would I, Frisk, because of course it’s only been Frisk this whole time, why would I ever use your dead child against you? It’s so funny right? Haha, great joke Frisk! Never bring up Chara again and we’ll call it a night.”

Mom’s frowning, but there’s something on her face, familiarity.

“Chara died and Chara stayed in the ground under buttercups, which is a sad sick ironic joke if you knew. But you don’t, and you think both you kids died and went away and they didn’t stick around and find all the new kids that ‘fell down.’” Your voice is cracking, but Chara doesn’t care. You know they’ve fought through worse to talk before. “But they couldn’t be here, human souls don’t do that. They don’t merge like that, don’t cohabitate for almost nine years, don’t take over when one person’s too overwhelmed to handle the world, no, and Chara definitely didn’t stop Frisk from fucking hitting another car and dusting everyone involved. They just stayed dead in the fucking ground where you left them!”

Mom has tears in her eyes now and Sans has fingers pressed to the ridge where he would have a nose. Chara’s high strung and your voice is tired from how much and how loud it’s been used.

“We finally decide it’s time to tell you and you call it a joke?” Your voice betrays the emotions, breaking on joke. “I’ve been here since they fell down. I’ve been here the whole time. And… And you can’t even take the time to hear us out?”

“It’s not possible,” she breathes out shakily. “It just can’t be.”

“Half the shit that happened down there shouldn’t have been possible, but here we are,” they say bitterly. There’s tears in your eyes, but Chara will put that on you. They don’t cry, of course.

“Wh-what would be something—”

“We accidentally put buttercups in dad’s butterscotch pie because we thought that’s what the butter was. Azzy used to try and make me go outside by putting chocolate in the trees and telling me that chocolate grew on trees in the underground and it actually worked for a day before I caught him setting it up.” They take a deep deep breath and keep going, even if mom already has her hands on her face. “You buried me under buttercups because I thought they were pretty after I died from something with no cause and no cure. But it had a cause, and it had a cure, because it was buttercups, because I didn’t want you to know what Azzy and I were planning.”

Mom’s openly crying now, and they drag you into a hug after making it clear that’s what she’s doing. You freeze, or Chara freezes, or maybe both of you do, but then you relax into it, pressing your face into her soft warm fur.

“I’m so sorry,” she says into your hair, and you’re crying now too, weeping into her furry shoulder. Sans is still standing there by the wall, just out of distance of this scene, but it’s fine. He can stay.

Chara’s having more of a reaction inside, more of a catatonic relief, a keening noise echoed throughout your head hole. You’re weeping loudly for both of you. Mom holds you tight, petting a hand through your hair.

“You’re here,” she says reverently. “My child, my children, you’re here and I have you and I’m never letting go again.”

You stay like that, wrapped up in each other for a long time. You let Chara be more forward, feel mom’s hug more than you. You get these all the time, and Chara usually shies away because it’s explicitly not for them. This is for them. This is for Chara and they lay slack jawed and crying in their mother’s hold.

“You said,” mom says after a long while, once everyone’s done crying. “You said that Frisk almost hit someone? Was it on purpose?”

You pull back and wipe at your face. “ _Wanted to feel my soul burst_ ,” you say honestly.

“holy fuck,” sans says, covering his whole face with his hands.

“Seconded,” mom says sadly. “I am very, very glad that… that Chara was there to stop you.”

You nod and don’t look at her. She tilts your chin towards her a bit, just so she can see you better. “My dear, I think I may have danced around your problems for too long. I’m glad you have each other, I truly am, but that’s no replacement for someone equipped to handle these thoughts you have. The both of you.”

Chara makes to turn her down enthusiastically, but you stop them. You nod, sign a quiet OK and look at her. Her eyes are soft and sad and she tears up all over again.

“I don’t know how I haven’t noticed before. You do switches all the time, don’t you? You did one just now. From loud to quiet.”

“ _We have practice_ ,” you sign. Mom pulls you into one last hug, tight and squeezing.

“i can take care of the car,” Sans offers quietly. His grin seems faded, tacked on. You go over there and hug him too, arms tight around bony ribs.

“you did good, kid. real good.” He hugs you back just as tight before patting you on the shoulder and disappearing. You go back to mom, pull you both to the couch. Shew wraps you up in a hug and stays curled around you.

“I am sorry that I acted as though it was a joke,” she says quietly into the night. “You were trying so hard to make it easier for me and I made it ten times harder.”

“ _It’s OK_ ,” you tell her, and Chara feels it too. “ _We understand._ ”

“You really are incredible children,” she says, arm squeezing you. “And I love you so, so much.”

Chara tears up all over again, but they call you a **crybaby**. You accept it. If it makes them feel better, then so be it. Mom kisses the top of your head and holds you that much tighter.

“Get some rest, children. We can talk more on this in the morning”

**Yeah. I’m fucking, uh, exhausted**.

You giggle and snuggle in closer. You are too, and mom’s given you the go ahead, so you wait until Chara’s asleep before telling mom goodnight.

“Rest, child,” she tells you softly.

And you do.

**Author's Note:**

> lol guess who's back on their undertale bullshit agaaaaaaaaain  
> deltarune dragged me all the way back innd i just wanted to write a new fic for undertale so i did. Its been quite a hot second since i did that, but oh well  
> hope yall like!


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